


on the last day on earth

by chadsuke



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-03-24 01:00:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13800063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chadsuke/pseuds/chadsuke
Summary: “I want… I want to- to spend my last day on earth with… with whoever wrote m-my name down.”It's a simple assignment from Iruka-sensei: write down the name of whoever you want to spend your last day on earth with. Naruto doesn't have anyone to write down. But someone...Someone writes down his name.





	1. Chapter 1

Naruto doesn't like this assignment. “Write down who you’d want to spend your last day on earth with,” Iruka-sensei says, and Naruto… doesn’t have an answer. He really doesn’t like this.

He doesn’t know what his mom or dad’s name is, so he can’t write them down. He doesn’t have any friends, so he can’t really write them down, either. Yeah, okay, he gets to hang out with Shikamaru and Kiba and Chouji sometimes, and that's fun, but they're not  _friends._ Not like how Shikamaru and Chouji are friends, or Kiba and Akamaru.

Naruto has no one.

After a moment, he scoffs, folding up the piece of paper into a paper airplane and letting it fly. There’s no point.

Iruka-sensei, of course, gets mad. “Hey, Naruto!” he says, marching up between the desks to glare at him, hands on his hips. “Don’t throw out your paper!”

He leans back, closing his eyes so he doesn’t have to look his teacher in the eyes. Iruka-sensei is very, very good at knowing things when he shouldn’t, and Naruto doesn’t want that. “But there’s no way the world’s gonna end, Iruka-sensei!” he says, and he grins.

His teacher doesn’t accept that. “That’s why I’m saying _if_ it does, Naruto.”

“Well, it ain’t gonna happen!”

They bicker back and forth, and Naruto lands himself a detention. Of course. He sulks for the rest of the day, chin on his desk while he glances at Sakura, who’s setting next to him. She’s pretty, but he hasn’t ever spoken to her, not _really._ And she likes that pretty boy, Sasuke – so he doesn’t think he wants to spend his last day on earth with her.

 No, Naruto doesn’t have an answer for him, not that Iruka-sensei seems to care. After everyone’s filed out of the classroom at the end of the day, he slaps down another one of those papers in front of him. “Listen. Naruto.” He’s got that ‘I’m trying really hard to be patient and not yell’ voice, which means he’s really tired but also trying to be nice, so Naruto tries to listen, glancing up at him. “If you can finish this assignment, and sit here without disrupting anything while I go bring my things to my office, I’ll treat you to ramen.”

Well, that’s a promise, and Naruto perks up, sitting upright and giving his teacher a grin. “Okay! Ramen, ramen, ramen!”

He dances in his seat, and Iruka-sensei laughs a little, ruffling Naruto’s hair before he heads to the front to pick up his books and all the assignments they turned in that day.

Unfortunately, that still means Naruto has to come up with an answer. He frowns at the blank paper, balancing his pencil between his lip and nose. He _could_ just write down ‘Mom’ or ‘Dad’, even if that’s not really their names. Iruka-sensei might be okay with that. But… how can he choose between his Mom or his Dad…?

Okay, so maybe not that.

For a brief moment, he considers writing down ‘Iruka-sensei’, but that’s _all_ kinds of embarrassing. He doesn’t want his teacher to see that!

Naruto’s next thought is Old Man Teuchi and Ayame, because they’re really nice and make great ramen, and if he spent his last day on earth with _them_ it means he’d get to eat ramen all day and that sounds like a GREAT last day, but again, he can’t… choose. Teuchi and Ayame are a package deal, like when there’s a buy one get one on cup ramen, and he doesn’t want to pick one over the other. He really can’t!

In desperation, the blonde is considering putting down _Old Man Hokage_ when he notices something. It’s a paper, left on the floor. Iruka-sensei must’ve dropped it when he left!

He’s _supposed_ to stay in his seat. He knows he is. He knows that Iruka-sensei will buy him ramen only _if_ he stays. But… Well, maybe if he picks it up for Iruka-sensei, he won’t have to answer this dumb question! And maybe it’ll give him an idea, or something.

Cause so far all his have been _embarrassing._

Dropping his pencil on the desk with a clatter, Naruto skips down the stairs. It’s one of the ‘last day on earth’ papers, he realizes as he approaches. It’s lying face down on the ground, and he leans over and picks it up, flipping it over.

It’s his name.

Naruto.

Doesn’t.

_Understand._

He looks it over to check if it’s a prank, maybe. But he knows this isn’t Shikamaru or Chouji or Kiba’s handwriting, because this is very _neat_ kanji and they… well, they’re not very neat. (Not that he can talk, but they’re not neat either!) Nobody else would bother to prank him. It’s not Iruka-sensei’s handwriting, either, because he’s quick and flourish-y and messy, and this… isn’t that either.

This isn’t a prank. This isn’t even a piece of paper that just randomly has his name on it. Naruto’s turned it over three times and it’s _definitely_ one of the papers from earlier.

Someone wrote his name down.

_Someone wants to spend their last day on earth with him._

He’s shaking, a little, Naruto realizes. His hands shake and the paper jiggles and he makes himself stop, FORCES the shaking to move away from his arms and down to his legs, because this is suddenly the most important piece of paper he has ever touched in his entire life.

The door slides open. “Naruto,” Iruka-sensei says, exasperated. “What did I tell you? Stay in your seat!”

Naruto doesn’t move.

There’s a pause, just a quiet little silence, and then Iruka-sensei is kneeling next to him, pressing a gentle hand to his arm. “Naruto,” he says, and he’s quiet this time, quiet and concerned, but Naruto still can’t look away, still can’t look at him. “What’s wrong?”

“Iruka-sensei-“ His voice cracks, and he can’t finish. He can’t talk. Naruto turns the paper instead, so that his teacher can look at it, instead. “I want… I want to- to spend my last day on earth with… with whoever wrote m- _my_ name down.”

And then Naruto bursts into tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't normally write het naruto but like. that scene from the last movie? is ripe with so much fanfic POTENTIAL and naruhina is one of the het naruto ships i can handle lol. also i really wanted to write FLUFF
> 
> anyway i literally wrote this in 20 min but further chapters will be longer. thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

Naruto’s been acting strange this week.

Even if Hinata didn’t watch him as closely as she did, she’s pretty sure that she’d be able to notice. Naruto has always sat by either Sakura, Kiba, Shikamaru, or Chouji. Sasuke, as of recent, too, but Iruka-sensei tends to separate them because they bicker so much. He doesn’t really pay attention to anyone else in the class, and since they don’t really give him the time of day, he doesn’t, either.

But this week…

He’s been sitting with someone new every day. Not even just every day – every single time they leave the classroom to do something, and then come back, he’s claimed a new desk by a new person.

Hinata has to _wonder_ at it, has to wonder _why,_ especially since he’s been so diligent about attending class. He hasn’t skipped a single time.

And today – today, this Friday – he’s… he’s sitting next to her.

Hinata can barely breathe. Can barely concentrate on paying attention to Iruka or to what they’re supposed to be doing or anything like that because Naruto is sitting _right next to her_ and he keeps looking over at her and her work and she wonders if maybe he’s trying to copy her assignment and that’s. Fine. That’s fine by her if he does because she _knows_ Naruto works hard even if he doesn’t get things, always, so she slides her paper over just a little bit so he can see it better.

The blonde looks up at her, startled, and Hinata meets his eyes for like two tenths of a second before she turns bright red, hastily glancing away and feeling really dizzy. She wants to talk to him. She really does.

She desperately, fiercely hopes that Naruto would like her if they talked, that they could be friends, but every time she tries to say something the words lock up in her throat and she can’t do it she _can’t_ and it. Hurts.

Because she knows how lonely Naruto is, and she wants to be there for him but she’s too much of a coward to do it, and that’s why she wonders if he would even like her.

“Hey, Hinata,” Naruto whispers, and the Hyuuga’s heart stops in her chest because _Naruto is talking to her._ “Your handwritin’s really neat!”

Hinata clasps her hands in front of her on her lap, squeezing hard hard hard to try to ground herself, to try to make her say _something,_ to say _anything,_ to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but. But. “Y-Yes,” she says, and that’s all she says.

They lapse back into silence and Hinata tries not to cry and think of how pathetic she really is.

* * *

Naruto sits by someone else after they break for lunch, and the Hyuuga tries not to cry again, and she sniffles a little bit in her seat maybe, but no one notices not even Iruka-sensei so. That’s good, at least.

She can’t pay attention for the rest of the day, though, because she feels. Like a failure. Even more than when Father thinks of her as a failure, tells her how much better Hanabi and Neji are, Hinata feels like a failure _today_ because she couldn’t even talk to Naruto, she wasn’t even that brave.

It’s the very end of the day, and Iruka-sensei steps out for just a moment to go grab some papers to turn back from his office, and Naruto vaults over his desk to land (barely, he stumbles) in the front of the classroom. He turns around to face them, hands on his hips, and Hinata hasn’t quite seen the look he’s wearing… ever, before.

“Alright!” he says, and everyone’s kind of staring a little because what is he doing, honestly. “Last week, when we were doin’ those stupid who you’d spend your last day on earth with things, someone wrote my name down!” Naruto nods, folding his arms, and Hinata feels all the color in her face drain away. No. No no no. “And I can’t figure out who, so you gotta tell me! Who did it?”

There’s a silence, for just a moment.

And then one of the girls start to giggle and it spreads like wildfire, sweeping across the whole classroom until most of them are laughing at Naruto. Sasuke’s not. Chouji’s not. Shikamaru’s not. Hinata’s definitely not. But most of them are laughing at him or otherwise dismissing him to go back to their conversations, and Hinata sees the anger and the _hurt_ ripple across Naruto’s face.

Tobio rolls his eyes. “Naruto, who’d write _your_ name down?” he says, exasperated, and Hinata feels.

She feels.

She feels _angry._

How- How could they? How could they do that? She had _meant_ it when she wrote his name down, and she had meant it so sincerely and Naruto just. He just wants to find out _who_ and they’re _laughing_ at him or they don’t _care_ and-

“I did it,” she says, and no one hears her except Ino next to her, who looks over, wide-eyed, and immediately stops giggling.

Hinata stands up.

“I did it,” she says, and some more people hear her, some more people surrounding her stop but others just keep laughing and Naruto hasn’t noticed her and-

“I did it!” Hinata says and she says it loud and it’s the loudest she’s ever spoken in her entire life and everyone stops and everyone looks at her and Naruto’s looking at her and she

can’t

_breathe._

She turns and runs out the back of the classroom and no one stops her.

* * *

Hinata runs all the way home. She runs past Iruka in the hall and doesn’t listen to him try to stop her, she runs out the door and out of the Academy and down the street all the way home, flying past Ko as he’s about to leave to go get her and she doesn’t stop running until she’s in her room, until she can bury her face in her pillow and cry and cry and cry.

The door gently slides open behind her, and then shuts, and she feels the warmth of her caretaker settle next to her as Ko gently lays a hand on her back. “Lady Hinata,” Ko says, and he’s soft and he’s sweet. “What happened?”

“K-Ko.” She sniffles, and pulls herself up to a sitting position, so she can look up at him with wide, red, watery eyes. “I’m not… I’m n-not a g-good person. I’m n-not… I’m n-not brave at… at all!”

He pulls her onto his lap, into an embrace, and she falls into his warmth, pressing her head against his chest and hearing the thump thump thump of his heartbeat as he wraps his arms around her and rocks her. “Sssh,” he says. “You don’t need to be brave to be a good person.”

Hinata’s eyes well up with tears again, and she burrows her face into Ko’s chest, uncaring of the way she’s getting tears and snot all over him. “B-But I… I want… I want t-to be b-brave!”

Ko hmms, rubbing her back. “Then, whatever happened today, you need to fix it on Monday. I think that’d be awfully brave.”

She sniffles again. “You… Y-You think so?”

He nods. “I do. I think you can do it.”

“I… I’ll t-try,” Hinata agrees, even if it terrifies her. She needs. She needs to talk to Naruto on Monday. Hopefully… Hopefully he isn’t mad. Hopefully he’s not…

He’s not disappointed in who she is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another fic update! i'm on a writing roll this past week, and i'm going to very much take advantage of that and get out as many chapters as possible.
> 
> anyway, poor little hinata breaks my heart. :( she tries so very hard. may be adding Ko to the character tags in the future, buuut i'm not certain how much of a role he'll be playing! so we'll see.


	3. Chapter 3

Hinata doesn’t find herself brave enough to go in once Monday rolls around, though. She cries into Ko’s chest and he sends a note with Neji to give to Iruka-sensei about her being sick, and Ko just reads her books in bed.

He does the same on Tuesday, staying away from the missions desk in order to take care of her, and he’s all geared up to do the same on Wednesday when someone knocks on Hinata’s bedroom door. He pulls away from her side, bringing away his warmth which makes her really sad, and has a very quiet conversation with the Hyuuga branch member that Hinata cannot make heads nor tails of.

Ko very quietly shuts the door, and then very quietly sits down next to Hinata, who shrinks into her blanket because she doesn’t like whatever that just was. “Lady Hinata,” the sixteen-year-old says with the utmost, tired patience. “Is whatever you are scared to fix…” He inhales, exhales. “Does it have to do with the Uzumaki boy?”

Hinata’s eyes fly _wide,_ face flushing red, but she cannot bring herself to nod or respond in any way. It doesn’t matter. That’s enough for Ko.

He sighs. “Lady Hinata… the Uzumaki boy is outside the compound right now, yelling for you.” Hinata _freezes._ “You need to tell me what is going on.”

She really doesn’t want to. She doesn’t doesn’t doesn’t want to, but the way Ko is looking at her is the kind of look she knows all too well, that ‘I have all the time in the world and will sit here and stare at you until you manage to get every word out’ and she really doesn’t. Want to sit here forever.

While Naruto yells for her outside the front gates oh she feels dizzy just thinking about it.

“I…” She takes a deep breath, and pulls the covers over her head so she doesn’t have to look at Ko while she says it. “I want. T-To. Be… be his friend.”

“ _Just_ his friend?”

The question kind of confuses her – what… else is there? – but she nods. And then remembers that Ko can’t see her nod because she’s under the covers so she squeaks out a “Y-Yes.” And then realizes that he probably has his Byakugan on _anyway_ so really the entire act of hiding under the covers is pointless so she pokes her head out.

He doesn’t have his Byakugan on, but something about him looks _relieved,_ and she thinks she did the right answer. “Your Father won’t like you being friends with him, Lady Hinata.” Ko grimaces. “I… don’t like you being friends with him.”

Her heart sinks to her toes.

Hinata knows that Ko doesn’t like Naruto, because he’s told her to stay away from him before and it’s honestly the only time she’s really not listened to Ko. He keeps talking. “That boy is a troublemaker, and I don’t think he’d be a good influence on you.” She feels absolutely heartbroken, like she’s just. Going to curl up into a ball and cry forever because if Naruto wants to be her friend (she hopes hopes HOPES that’s why he’s here) but she’s not allowed to it’ll be the worst thing ever.

Ko puts his hand on her head and she sniffles. He tousles her hair, very very gently, and she meets his eyes. They’re soft. “Would becoming his friend make you happy, Lady Hinata?”

She nods so fast she almost gives herself a spontaneous headache. “Yes! Yes… yes, K-Ko, please…!”

He leans in, wraps his arms around her, and squeezes her. Hinata melts against him. “Get dressed,” he tells her. “I’m not taking you out to see him in that.”

* * *

A lot of happy tears and three outfit changes later, Ko carries Hinata outside, perched on his hip. Naruto is indeed in front of the compound. He’s lying in the middle of the road, now, very clearly bored but unwilling to leave. “Hinata, I want to see Hinata!” he calls, not moving from his position, with the air of one who has said that same phrase at least two dozen times in the past hour.

“Well,” says Ko. “You won’t see her if you’re acting like that.”

Naruto’s head snaps up, all ready to snarl and yell but he. Stops. Immediately, the moment he sees her, and he scrambles to his feet with wide eyes while she tries to resist burying her face in Ko’s neck.

She opts for a compromise of half burying her face and half peeking out at Naruto.

“Hinata!” Naruto yells, because he ALWAYS yells. “I’ve been lookin’ for ya! Ya weren’t at school an’ I didn’ know where you LIVED and-“

Ko holds up a hand and cuts him off. “Let’s have this exchange away from prying ears.” Naruto stares at him blankly. Ko sighs and mutters something about _uneducated hellions._ “Let’s go talk somewhere else, or people will hear us and that won’t be good.”

“Oh,” says Naruto, and he nods sagely, like he’s wise like the Hokage or the Hyuuga Elders. “Okay. Where are we going?”

“Follow me,” says Ko.

He starts walking, but he’s fast. He’s used to Neji dogging his heels. Maybe Hinata if she doesn’t want to be carried. Naruto is unused to his stride, to his fast pace, and he struggles to catch up, to figure out how to stay by Ko’s side, and the Hyuga stops abruptly.

Naruto only barely stops himself from crashing into Ko’s legs, and pinwheels his arms to keep his balance. “Whoa, whoa! We barely wen’ ANYWHERE, why’re we stoppin’!?”

Ko holds out his hand. Naruto stares at it, absolutely confused once more. Ko sighs. “Hold my hand,” he tells Naruto, and Naruto’s eyes snap up to meet Ko’s with bewildered disbelief. “I don’t want you to fall behind.”

Hesitantly, oh so slowly, as if Ko is going to snatch this away from him and proclaim the whole thing a joke (Hinata has. Seen it before.), he reaches out to take Ko’s hand. “Okay,” he says very, very quietly, and Hinata sees Ko’s gaze soften, just a little bit.

The rest of the walk is spent in silence.

* * *

It’s a training ground that Ko picks for his talk. Hinata doesn’t recognize it from when she sometimes tags along with Ko when he goes to train with people, or when he trains her – he realizes she gets Way Too Nervous at home, so they never train together in the compound – so that’s probably why he chose here.

He lets go of Naruto’s hand and sits down, cross-legged, Hinata sitting on his lap. Naruto scrambles to clumsily mimic him, facing right across from them and staring at Hinata. She turns bright red and looks down at her lap, but glances up to watch him very carefully. “Uzumaki Naruto,” Ko addresses him, and the boy straightens up. “Why did you want to talk to Lady Hinata?”

Naruto mouths ‘ _Lady?’_ with confusion, but shakes his head. “I, uh… Well, Hin- _Lady_ Hinata, she…” He fumbles, and then just looks directly at her. “Didja mean it? When… when you said that you wanted to spend your last day with _me?_ ”

It feels like all the blood rushing to her head is going to make her fall over, and she picks up Ko’s hands, pressing them to her cheeks because his hands are cool and they make her feel better. (She can feel his chest rumble with a suppressed laugh behind her, and she’d pout, if this were a different situation.) Her hands stay clasped over his, and she stares at Naruto’s feet cause it’s easier than staring at his face.

“I…” She tries to say words, and promptly fails, so she just nods instead.

But that’s not a good enough answer, because Naruto quietly asks “Why?” and Hinata looks up to meet his eyes.

He looks so… so hopeful. Like when people ask him to eat lunch with them and then laugh when he wants to, because it’s just a game they play, just a game to make him hopeful someone wants to be friends and then spit in his face about it.

Hinata doesn’t want to be that person.

“I…” Inhale, exhale. She straightens up – _steel!! Be steel!! Strong!!_ – and looks straight at him. “I want… want to be your… your friend.” He stares at her and it _all spills out._ “You’re… f… funny and you always… always _smile_ and…” Hinata sniffles and hiccups, and starts to cry and Ko moves his hands to squeeze her tight. “I want… I want…

“Yes!” Naruto basically crawls forward, grabbing her hands and Hinata’s feeling dizzy again but his smile is so, so blinding and Hinata is so glad she’s got Ko holding her and that she’s in his lap because she thinks she might run away otherwise because all of this is so overwhelming. “Yes, yes, I want to be your friend! We can be best friends and do everything best friends do and please, pretty please with ramen on top, I wanna be your friend!”

Ko coughs, quietly, and Naruto glances up but doesn’t let go of Hinata’s hands. “If you two are to be friends, you must treat Lady Hinata with respect, understand?”

He blinks at that, once, twice, but nods. “Yes! I will! But I dunno what that means!”

“It _means_ that you must call her Lady Hinata, and you must be _polite_ at all times.” Naruto nods, soaking all of this up like a sponge and he _still hasn’t let go of Hinata’s hands._ “It also means that-“

Her stomach growls. She hadn’t had breakfast before this and now it was getting towards lunch and Hinata wants to sink into the ground and disappear for like, a million years as both boys’ eyes snap to her. Naruto giggles. Ko shakes his head. “It means we’ll discuss this over lunch.”

He stands up, pulling Hinata _away_ from Naruto who almost falls over but manages to catch himself. “Come. We’ll go to Lady Hinata’s favorite place for lunch,” he says, settling her on her hip, and Hinata feels like Ko’s doing all the talking but that’s. Okay. Right now she’s Very Very Overwhelmed This Is A Lot It’s So Much and Ko can do all the talking.

Naruto’s face falls, just a little. “I don’t…” He says, and he stands up and looks at his feet. “I don’t got any food money left for th’ month.”

Ko stills, for just a moment, and then offers his hand to Naruto again. “No,” he says. “It’s my treat. Don’t worry about it.”

The blonde’s smile is absolutely blinding, and Hinata wants to happy cry again because here are two of her favorite people with her and liking each other AND liking her and she knew Ko would like Naruto if he got to know him.

She’s so happy she could burst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> officially adding ko to the character list! he's going to play a pretty big part in this, which i didn't QUITE anticipate when making up this story but like. i'm not complaining.
> 
> anyway it's really hard to get a good balance for hinata! because this is pre-a lot of character development, because she IS this brave little girl but she's also this sad, scared, abused little girl (with a crush on a sad, abused little boy) and i just. ughhh i want happiness for both of these children.
> 
> and ko is only sixteen alsdjkfsd WHO PUT HIM IN CHARGE OF SEVEN YEAR OLDS. I CANT BELIEVE THATS HOW OLD HE CANONICALLY IS. ANGEL TBH I LOVE THEM KIDS.
> 
> ko, before meeting naruto: fuck that kid is a menace  
> ko, now: I Am A Father Of Two Children Don't You Touch One Hair On Their Heads


End file.
